The never-ending experiment

It is certainly no coincidence that the three main dramatis personae in thedenouement of the political farce that took place in the capital were looking to satisfy their egos in writing the obituary of the Janata Dal. It is another matter that perhaps one of the two factions may be able to retain the real’ Janata Dal for itself in the form of its wheel symbol in the legal battle to ensue. But the soul of the party, as Jaipal Reddy put it, has been destroyed by the assault on its very philosophy of secularism and social justice. It is ironical that Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav, who have embraced the BJP, were once the leading lights in the campaign against communalism.

Though Reddy wouldn’t admit it, the soul was destroyed long ago. The party looked the other way when I.K. Gujral took the help of the Akali Dal, an ally of the "communal" BJP to win the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat in 1998. Even earlier, Deve Gowda as prime minister hobnobbed with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

The Hegde-George-Patel nexus was only the catalyst for the inevitable. In a rapidly polarised politicalclimate, party leaders were beginning to realise that it was fast losing space. Moralists like Jaipal Reddy may argue that those who have teamed up with the BJP are only looking for short-term gains.

But then, how do you convince the likes of Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav and in fact the entire Bihar unit against the path they have chosen?In Bihar, these leaders had little choice but to go the BJP-Samata way if they were to take on Laloo Prasad Yadav. Electorally, it does not make sense for them to go with the Congress or stay neutral. The same is the case in Karnataka where the party is virtually finished, as far as the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are concerned. There had been an exodus from the party to the Congress, the BJP and Lok Shakti anyway. Sadly, for most legislators the need to get re-elected weighs heavier than ideology or the embarrassment of unnatural alliances.

"If each one of us thinks only of our seats and how to win, why do we need a political party at all," asks oneleader in anguish at the naked display of opportunism by his colleagues.

The secularists in the party, while strongly opposing any truck with communal forces, find it inconvenient to answer questions about their soft attitude towards corruption. "In the name of secularism, can the corruption of Laloo Prasad Yadav be condoned?" asks Paswan of a section in the party which wants a tie-p with the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

These leaders are similarly vague about future relations with the Congress. The equidistance policy suited them fine when they shot down Patel’s proposal that the Janata Dal should join the National Democratic Alliance. But ask them whether they rule out any truck of their faction with the Congress and the replies are evasive and bereft of clarity.

"Till now the Janata Dal has not had any alliance with the Congress in any part of the country," is all what Madhu Dandavate is prepared to say. "That issue is not before us now," is the vague response of Gowda. He, too, is not ready to say if theKarnataka unit’s resolution for maintaining equidistance from both the BJP and the Congress would be the national policy as well.

Hegde and Fernandes are seeking to give the present reunification of some of the constituents of the Janata parivar the character of the 1977 Janata experiment. The parallel, though, is not quite apt. That mobilisation of forces, a culmination of the anti-Emergency movement, was genuine and much broader. It did not have anything to do with the personal agendas of those associated with it.

Even that experiment was short-lived and ended in disaster. Subsequent ones fared no better. The Janata parivar has time and again succeeded in occupying the third political space whenever a vacancy has arisen, but it has always sqaundered it. But the parties the parivar founded never had an organised structure like the BJP or the Left.

If this has given it the leeway to make positive adjustments it has more often led to its dismemberment. The clash of the kingsize egos of its leaders (thejoke is that it is a party of leaders with no followers) and the dismal failure to expand its base despite being in power not only at the Centre but in several states has been its undoing. But the experiment will continue. Under another name, another symbol.